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Artificial Wombs In the Near Future?
New submitter DaemonDan writes "The first successful pregnancy by IVF was accomplished over 50 years ago, essentially creating a multi-billion dollar industry. Many scientists are trying to take it one step farther with a 100% test tube baby brought to term in an artificial womb. 'Cornell University's Dr. Hung-Ching Liu has engineered endometrial tissues by prompting cells to grow in an artificial uterus. When Liu introduced a mouse embryo into the lab-created uterine lining, "It successfully implanted and grew healthy," she said in this New Atlantis Magazine article. Scientists predict the research could produce an animal womb by 2020, and a human model by early 2030s.' The author of the article seems to believe that birth via artificial wombs could become the new norm, but is it really feasible, desirable or even affordable for the majority of Earth's population?"
As long as they don't all have the surname "Fett"...
Is there a baby shortage we should be concerned about?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Forget the artificial womb, who's working on an artificial vagina?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
My first born son has been in the hospital for the last three months. He was born a little early. Let's just say that I'm open to the idea of not going through that again.
Should we use these to decant Alphas or Epsilon semi-morons?
Born in a test tube.
Nurtured in a plastic womb.
Raised by a telescreen.
Now another soldier for democracy, freedom and the American way...
Consider, female is pregnant & wants to abort her fetus, but the male sues to have custody of the fetus turned over to him since he can implant it into an artificial womb..
In a society where pregnancy can occur entirely outside of the human body, what will happen for abortion rights, custody disputes, etc.
All kinds of social, ethical and legal landmines waiting in that Pandora's box.
Really? Artificial wombs, FFS? Look around you, Dr. Fertility. The natural wombs are pumping out product at a terrifyingly prodigious rate with no help from you. Maybe you can work on some other organ that we maybe need to stay alive or something?
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
No, they could. But Apple had all the design patents on them
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Uterine replicators were pretty central to the start of Bujold's series in '86 with one of her first Hugo's coming out of that initial plot. She's examined their impact from a few different angles over the years - although it's just background or a side line in many of the Vorkosigan novels. I'd say she gave it a far better treatment than Herbert (though he certainly got there first) who only ever managed to share a Hugo let alone win the four Bujold's got. Actually, I think I liked the collaborative work of his son with Anderson a bit more than most of the original Dune books (barring Dune itself), although their work is probably best accompanied by a SSRI.
One of the things I appreciate about SF is not just the imagination of the future as much as exploring the ethics and social implications of where we might end up.
But of course, if we grow humans in an artificial womb, they wouldn't really alive until we take them out at the end of the 9-month procedure, right?
If you are referring to abortion poltics, the term you are looking for is "legal person."
There is no question that a zygote is biologically human and biologically alive.
Legal person-hood is another matter. This is granted - and taken away - by the common consensus of society or in some cases, the edict of a government or dictator that doesn't reflect the consensus of society. Even ignoring "artificial legal persons" like corporations, a society can grant legal personhood - the state of having the rights of a living person - on sufficiently-intelligent animals or non-earth-originated sentient aliens or even sentient human-created life forms (e.g. computer programs, androids, etc.) if it wants to. If it wants to, it can also take away or deny the personhood of living humans who are too young (e.g. not born yet, or not old enough to be more self-aware than non-human animals), or severely mentally retarded or severely brain-damaged. We can also take away personhood by declaring someone dead even if they are still breathing. Most Western countries do this today when they declare someone "brain dead" if their autonomic systems are working but there is no other brain function.
By the way, I am NOT advocating denying anyone who has already been born the status of "person" for reasons of mental or physical incapacity short of brain death. If the society I live in makes this a common practice, I'll probably move.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
First successful *human* IVF.
The first successful IVF pregnancy & birth was in 1959 - a team at the Worcester Foundation, lead by Dr. Min Chueh Chang, successfully gave birth to a rabbit.
Well, OK, they didn't give birth to a rabbit per se - obviously another rabbit did - but they certainly had a hand in it, as it were...
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
Why? Is there seriously a need to come up with new methods other than good old fashioned fucking?
I don't think many people have a problem with the fucking, but rather with the subsequent 9-ish months of issues.
9 months? More like 18+ years. And that assumes said child moves away to college right after high school, gets a good job right out of college, etc.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
Kneel before Zod! Now, lay down before Zod. Now using your lower abdominals, raise your legs and hold on a five count before Zod! One before Zod! Two before Zod!